


Guardian (First Draft)

by ZombieBabs



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demons, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, First Aid, Hallucinations, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieBabs/pseuds/ZombieBabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strand is Alex Reagan's appointed guardian, whether he believes or not.</p><p>*This is the first draft of this story, left for archival purposes. Please read Guardian (Redux) for all new content and Actual Plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue

_Guardian_ , whisper the voices in the dark.

There is a unnamed need inside of him. A need so dark and hungry that he feels like he could be ripped apart from the inside if he does not fulfil it.

His hands flex, long claws at the end of each finger eager to tear apart anything, or anyone, who gets in his way.

 _Guardian_ , the voices whisper again.

He feels hands on his back, between his shoulder blades and the great pair of wings chained together with heavy iron links. 

He tries to turn, to knock away the stranger’s touch, but the voices hold him steady, whispering at in him a language he only barely understands. 

There is the sound of a lock clicking open. The stranger begins to unwind the chains binding his wings. The weight falls away, pooling beneath him until finally, finally he is free.

The need is somehow stronger than before.

Just as he is about to unfurl his wings, to stretch them after so long in captivity, the voices call to him. _Guardian_.

Dr. Strand wakes up.

Not bothering with his glasses, he stumbles a little on his way to the bathroom. He always feels off balance after these dreams, like his center of gravity has shifted. The thought makes no sense, so he shoves it back down with the rest of the dream.

The orange bottle rattles when he picks it up. The sound soothes a little of the knot of anxiety growing like a cancer in his chest. Strand dry swallows two pills and does not make the mistake of trying to look in the mirror.


	2. First Aid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which mirrors are broken.

“Hey!” Alex says, glancing up from her computer at the sound of his knock.

“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting?”

“Not at all. Why don’t you take a seat? I’ve just got to finish something and then we can go.”

Strand folds himself down into the armchair in the corner of Alex’s office and settles into the well-worn cushions. He watches Alex as she types with a speed he almost envies. Her hair is pulled back into a loose bun with a few strands framing her face. He can’t help but notice the way she bites her bottom lip as she works. 

Something tightens in his chest. He closes his eyes and wills it away. If he listens hard enough, he can hear whispers in between the tap of each keystroke.

“Dr. Strand?”

He blinks his eyes open to see Alex standing very close, worry etched clearly into each of her features. 

“Are you okay?”

He nods. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Alex frowns. “You were breathing kind of funny. And you’re clutching at your chest. Are you sure you’re alright?”

Strand drops his hand away, not having any recollection of moving it in the first place. “I’ve had trouble sleeping the past few days. Nothing to worry about.”

The look Alex gives him says she’s suspicious at best. “We can go another day if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

The thing in his chest sort of _twists_.

“No,” he says. It sounds strangled even to his own ears. He swallows and tries again. “No. I’m fine.”

Alex narrows her eyes at him. Just as she’s about to open her mouth to undoubtedly argue with him, his phone rings.

He recognizes the number on the screen with a rush of something like relief. “I’m sorry. I need to take this.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He retreats to the relative privacy of the men’s restroom. His voice echoes a little when he answers. “Hello.”

“Dr. Strand? This is Dr. Maloney. I’m returning your call from earlier this morning.”

Strand takes a deep breath. “I need you to increase the dosage.”

There’s a pause at the other end. “What are you experiencing?”

“Hallucinations.”

“What kind of hallucinations, Dr. Strand?”

Rubbing his free hand through his hair, he says, “Auditory. Visual.” 

Strand can hear the psychiatrist typing on the other end. “Can you describe these hallucinations? What are you hearing? What are you seeing? When did they start?”

It takes him a moment to gather the words, but even then they come out as a jumbled mess. “Dreams. It started with dreams, but now it’s all the time. Whispers in a language I’ve never heard before. Strange reflections in the mirror. It’s me, but it’s not me.”

“I see.” 

The knot of anxiety from earlier comes back with a vengeance. “You don’t believe me.”

“No, no, I believe you Dr. Strand. I’m just not comfortable making any changes to your medication until we’ve discussed these hallucinations more in depth. I see you next appointment is not until next month. How about we move it? I have an opening next week. Tuesday morning?”

“I have class.” He closes his eyes, trying to keep himself together. 

“I can try to move my schedule around. What day works for you?”

“Friday. I have to come in from Seattle.”

“I’ll have my receptionist call you to confirm the appointment. For now, you aren’t feeling suicidal? Homicidal?”

“No.”

Maloney makes another note. “Call me if anything changes for the worse. Hang in there.”

Strand thanks him and hangs up. Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he makes his way toward the sinks, being careful not to look up at the mirror. He feels a little better after splashing some water on his face.

That feeling doesn’t last long. The door to the bathroom swings open. Natural reaction to the sound causes Strand to look up. He sees Nic in the reflection behind himself, but his attention gets caught on the image of himself.

Only it’s not himself. It can’t be. 

The creature in the mirror has hair longer than his should be, down to its shoulders. The silver strands shine in the florescent light. The creature’s eyes glow with a strange blue light, pupils larger than a human’s should naturally be. Its skin is a dark grey, like a statue, but with scar-like markings. Strand moves to touch his own face and the creature in the mirror follows his movements exactly.

Nic stops and his mouth moves, but Strand can’t hear him over the voices whispering from all directions. He can make out the word ‘guardian.’

The creature in the mirror locks eyes with him. It smiles.

Its image explodes in a hundred shards of glass.

“Holy shit!” Strand hears. Then there are arms around him, pulling him away from the wreckage of the mirror. 

Strand lets himself be pulled along, clutching his bleeding hand with his other. It hurts, but the pain drowns out the voices. He can barely hear the whispers over the throbbing of his own heartbeat underneath his skin.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll pay for it.”

Nic shakes his head. “We’ll take care of that later. We need to get you to the hospital. You’re bleeding. Kind of a lot.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks. Do you have a first aid kit?”

“A first aid kit? Dr. Strand, you should really have that looked at!”

“Nic. First aid kit. Please.”

The younger man throws his hands up. “Fine. But don’t blame me when you bleed out.”

Strand huffs out a weak laugh. “I won’t.”

It isn’t Nic who comes back with the first aid kit, but Alex.

“I think you are in the wrong room,” Strand tries to joke. It falls flat.

“Nic said you _punched_ the mirror. What happened?”

“I didn’t like what I saw.” 

Cracking open the kit, she mutters, “That’s not funny.”

“I’ll have it fixed.”

Alex looks up at him and it’s hard to read the mixed emotions he sees there. “You’re acting strange. You destroy the mirror in my station bathroom and you won’t tell me why?”

“I’ll have it fixed,” he repeats. 

“Fine. Stubborn man. Come here.” She takes his arm and tries to pull him toward the sinks, but Strand resists. “Seriously? I’m not going to be able to see the glass with your hand covered in blood like this. We need to wash it off.”

When he doesn’t move, her expression softens. “I promise, I’ll be careful.”

It’s impossible for Strand not to respond when she looks at him like that. He lets her pull him, focusing his gaze on her hand where it grips his arm.

She’s gentle with him, running cool water over his damaged hand, being careful not to irritate the shards of glass still embedded in the skin. He hears her rummage through the kit and pull something out. “You’re lucky you didn’t open an artery,” she says.

Strand wants to tell her that he isn’t lucky, by any means, but he shoves the response back down. “I am,” he says instead.

He lets her work in silence, hissing only a little when she pulls out a particularly painful piece of mirror with large, plastic tweezers. When she’s finished, she rips open what he assumes are anti-bacterial wipes. “This is going to sting.”

Even with the warning, he flinches at the first swipe of alcohol. Alex makes sympathetic noises, but doesn’t let him pull his hand away. “None of these look like they need stitches,” she says. “Which is great, because I don’t know about you, but that’s not really in my field of expertise.”

She throws the bloody alcohol pads away and pulls out a tube of anti-bacterial gel. After smearing a bit of it on each cut, she wraps the hand with gauze, quick and efficient. “There. All done!”

Strand smiles. “Thank you.”

Alex pats the skin above the bandages and releases his arm. “You can make it up to me later. Do you want someone to drive you home?”

“Home?”

“Well, yeah,” she says, packing the kit up. “Unless you want to get lunch first?”

He shakes his head, trying not to feel disappointed. “Do you not want to continue with our plans for today?”

“You do? After all this?”

Strand holds up his bandaged appendage. “Good as new.”

She frowns and motions toward the shards of glass still littered across the floor. “I still have to take care of this mess. And see about getting a new mirror.”

Pulling out his phone, Strand starts dialing his assistant. She’ll be able to put together the arrangements for clean-up and a new mirror. “I’ll take care of it.”

Alex still looks like she wants to say no, but her shoulders relax as she relents. “Fine, but I’m driving. Keys.”

Smiling, Strand drops his keyring into her outstretched hand. “Excellent.”


	3. The Gardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex and Dr. Strand investigate.

Neither of them speak for the first hour of the drive. Strand sits silent in the passenger seat, his injured hand cradled in his lap. Alex wonders if she should have offered him some pain killers before they left, but she had been distracted. Rightfully so, if anyone had asked her. 

Something is wrong with Dr. Strand. He had come into her office looking exhausted. Then, he had scared her, his eyes going far away, breathing like he had just been running, his hands gripping at his suit jacket over his chest. He hadn’t responded when she had called his name. She had been ten seconds away from calling the hospital when he sort of snapped out of it. When his phone had rang, he had looked so relieved. Alex had watched him all but sprint out of her office, phone clutched like a life-line in his hand.

She had planned on questioning him about it once he returned. But then Nic had come in and all but dragged her to the first-aid kit, telling her that Strand had struck the mirror, that he was bleeding and refused to go to the hospital. She had patched him up and is now almost burning with the need for answers.

Finally, the need becomes too great and she blurts out, “Are you going to tell me what is going on with you? You don’t punch mirrors because you haven’t been sleeping well.”

Strand frowns. “I had hoped, against my better judgement, that you would not ask.”

Alex peers at him for a second, giving him a look that says, ‘I’m not going to force you, but also I am forcing you.’

Strand’s frown deepens. The fingers on his uninjured hand fidget with the bandages on the other. He’s silent for so long that Alex thinks he may not answer her. “When I was a child,” he starts. “When I was a child, I would have night terrors. I would scream and scream, but when I finally woke, I couldn’t explain what had frightened me. As I grew up, I was able to remember my dreams--nightmares, I should say. The dreams eventually stopped. For a long time.”

Alex does her best to keep her eyes on the road. “But now they’re back?”

“I’m afraid so.” He hesitates and Alex tries not to push. He turns to look out the passenger window and says, very quietly, “They’re bleeding over until I’m no longer sure whether I’m awake or still caught in the nightmare.”

Eyes wide, Alex grips the steering wheel harder. “Richard, you need to talk to someone about this. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital--”

Still staring out the window, he cuts her off. “I have an appointment with my psychiatrist next week.”

“Oh.” Alex doesn’t know what else to say. 

He turns back to look at her, wry smile back on his face. “You look surprised.”

She glances over at him before focusing back on the road. “I guess I’m mostly surprised that you’re even telling me all of this.”

Strand sits back in the passenger seat, head tilted back against the rest. “I trust you.”

For some reason, this shocks her more than everything he has told her combined. It takes her a moment to process, but eventually she says, “If you trust me, I’m going to need you to talk to me the next time you feel like punching a mirror, got it?”

Strand laughs. The silence they fall into for the rest of the trip is a lot more comfortable than when they began.

* * *

“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Alex asks. “It’s beautiful, but doesn’t really strike me as haunted.”

“That’s because it isn’t.” Strand smiles. 

Alex fights the urge to stick out her tongue. “You know what I meant.”

“I received a call from the director of these gardens. There have been multiple complaints of guests hearing strange noises, seeing shadows move in an otherwise unoccupied area, some people have even described feeling an overwhelming desire to run. The gardens are closed for ‘remodeling’ for the weekend, so we have free reign to look around.”

She blinks. “I thought you weren’t taking new cases.”

“I’m not. Technically.”

They begin to walk down the path, surrounded on either side by beautiful arrangements of flowers and trees. 

“Technically?” Alex asks.

“While I’ve been on sabbatical, we haven’t completely shut down. The official investigation will be handled by Ruby and staff at the Institute. I thought that, perhaps, you would like to join me on a preliminary tour of the grounds. Most cases, the initial tour is enough disprove any stories of paranormal activity, but to be thorough, we still do a full investigation.”

“Like a real ghost hunter,” Alex laughs.

“If all ‘ghost hunters,’ as you say, used the scientific method, the world would be--” he stops, realising that she is teasing him.

“This is a lot different than an asylum turned credit union,” Alex says, motioning at the greenery around them. “What do we need to look for?”

“We are essentially trying to experience the same phenomena that guests have been describing. Noises, moving shadows, inexplicable panic.”

“What if it’s just apophenia?”

Strand smiles. 

They continue walking for a few more minutes, Alex feeling hyper aware of their surroundings. She’s happy that Strand brought her along on one of his investigations, something different than the unsolvable Black Tapes, but at the same time, she’s still worried about him. Whenever she sneaks a glance at him, however, he looks fine. Exhausted, still, but not any worse than earlier. Alex isn’t sure if he’s truly feeling better or just getting better at hiding his distress.

Eventually, they come to a fork. 

“What do you think? Split up?”

Strand checks his watch. “For the sake of time, it would be best if we did. There are only a few hours before the sun begins to set.”

Alex takes the path closest to her, promising Strand that she’ll call him if she finds anything. 

She starts to regret her choice almost immediately. As the path starts to bend, the it begins to get darker. The trees are taller and the branches criss-cross above her, blocking most of the light. It feels colder, somehow. Alex shivers in the gloom, but continues walking.

She comes upon a clearing after another few minutes. It’s still dark, nearly too dark to see, so she pulls out her phone. The flashlight makes only the slightest difference, but at least she can see where she is walking. 

The clearing is overgrown. Alex’s path seems to disappear completely under the underbrush. Alex wonders why this area is so different compared to the rest of the meticulously cared-for gardens. It’s as if this part has been forgotten altogether. 

She starts to make her way back out of the clearing, pulling up Dr. Strand’s contact information as she does, when something grabs her ankle, nearly tripping her. 

She yelps, heart racing, and looks down to see her foot caught in a tangle of weeds. She laughs, glad Strand wasn’t around to see her so spooked over nothing.

She pulls her leg up, trying to dislodge the weeds, but they don’t come loose. If anything, she seems to get her foot tangled even further. Kneeling, she opens her messenger bag and digs through it until she finds the small pocket knife at the bottom. It isn’t very sharp, mostly kept to slice through tape, but it should be enough to cut her loose.

It isn’t. As soon as she cuts through one weed, there are more to replace it. It should be impossible--she can’t see where they are coming from and there is no way they could grow that fast, but her sneaker is becoming more and more ensnared. 

The clearing goes silent. The absence of noise is sudden and somehow, at the same time, deafening. It reminds her of how small animals, sensing danger, will flee an area before a disaster. She looks up, whole body on alert. If she has to, she’ll forsake her shoe and make a run for it. 

At first, she doesn’t see anything. Not until it moves. She thinks it is the shadow of a tree, until she notices that it is coming toward her. Nothing else moves, but the shadow, impossibly tall and independent of any foliage, is unmistakably closer than it was before.

“Help!” Her voice is unsteady and not at all loud enough to carry. 

The shadow has moved forward a few feet. It’s close enough that she can begin to make out an expression on the dark creature. Eyes where the mouth should be. Mouth where the eyes should be. Grinning, pointed teeth.

Turning to run, she nearly crashes to the ground. The weeds, previously caught only on her sneaker, have begun to snake up her ankle over her jeans. Thorns dig into her skin, leaving little stains of blood in the denim. 

“Richard!” she screams. He more than likely is unable to hear her, exploring his own area of the gardens. Remembering her phone, still acting as her flashlight, Alex tries to jab at the screen with trembling fingers. 

The phone rings and rings. After the fourth ring, it should have gone to voicemail, but there is a fifth, sixth, seventh ring before Alex hangs up to try again.

She drops the phone. 

The light goes out. 

The shadow creeps closure. It doesn’t walk, using its legs as a human would. Instead, each time she blinks, it has moved forward. It moves the span of only a few inches or entire yards in only an instant. 

“Richard!” she screams again. The upside-down face grins wider, mouth curling wider than the Cheshire Cat.

An animal, somewhere beyond the line of trees, howls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, sorry to have left it as a cliffhanger. I wasn't going to, but then I realized the chapter was getting a little long. Also, I'm evil. >:}


	4. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is rescued.

The thing, the creature, that bursts through the trees is not human.

It’s taller than a human should be, wider at the shoulders. Its skin is grey with glowing, silvery marks. They aren’t tattoos. If she looks closely, which is difficult at the speed that it’s moving--flying--the marks look like they are carved into its body, like a marble statue come to life, lit by some interior light. A huge pair of wings, like those of a predatory bird, beat at the air.

It comes to a stop, mid-flight. Luminous blue eyes scan the field, until its gaze comes to rest on the shadow now looming over Alex. It lets out a howl, much like the one she had heard before, throwing its head back in rage.

It charges.

The creature pulls back an arm as it moves, readying a hand with long, pointed black nails. It swipes at the shadow, which jumps backward a few feet, the smile on its upside down face shrinking.

Alex stares up at the two impossible things before her, the weeds around her ankle and lower leg tightening until her toes start to go numb. She tries to shake them off, rip them to pieces, but the thorns catch her skin until her fingers are a bloody mess. 

There’s another swipe of the creature's claws and, this time, the shadow doesn’t move fast enough. With a sound like fabric tearing, the creature rips into the shadow, leaving shady tendrils that bleed like ink dripping onto a page. The shadow staggers back, but the creature doesn’t let it go. It tears at the shadow until there is nothing but an upside down smile that fades away, as if it had never been there at all.

The creature makes a satisfied sound, breathing heavily. It looks at her and grins around sharp-looking incisors. It starts to come closer, but pauses when Alex tries to move backward,away from it, leg still caught in a tangle of weeds. It cocks its head, considering her, then howls. Alex can feel the sound all the way in her stomach.

“Richard!” she screams.

She can only hope that the creature hadn’t gotten to Strand before it had found her, can only hope that he isn’t lying somewhere in the gardens, bleeding or worse.

The creature cocks its head again. Its eyes go wide and it takes an unsteady step backwards, before spreading its wings and leaping into the air. It hovers there, markings glowing suddenly more and more bright until Alex has to look away.

The light goes out suddenly, plunging the clearing back into darkness. Alex looks up just in time to see a body, a human body, fall from the place the creature had been. It lands with a painful crunch face down in the underbrush.

Alex tries again to pull herself free from the weeds. The thorns embedded in her jeans sting as she rips them away, but she doesn’t let the pain stop her. When there are no more weeds, she moves away from the spot, just in case.

The body groans and shifts where he lays. The man tries to push himself up, but cries out when he tries to put weight on one of his arms. 

Hesitant, Alex goes to him, helping him to roll over. “Richard?”

Strand lays there, eyes closed tight with pain. They open, glowing blue for just a second, until the light dims and his pupils return to a normal size. “Alex?”

His clothes are ruined, hanging onto him in places only by threads. His hair shifts from a starlight silver back to its near black color. His skin is pale in the darkness and there are no signs of the scar-like markings. His hands are normal--human--with short, clipped nails. The bandage that she had so carefully wrapped around his hand is gone, along with any trace of the wounds she had tended to just a few hours ago.

“Okay, what the fuck?”

He pushes himself up, holding his injured arm close to his chest. “I think my arm is broken.”

“You must have hurt it when you _fell from the sky_.”

“I--what? Alex, you’re not making any sense. What happened?”

Alex frowns. She makes herself take a deep breath and pushes the panic rising in her throat down and away. Once she’s reasonably certain that she isn’t about to break down, she asks, “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what? How did I get here?”

Alex brushes a few stray hairs out of her face. “You aren’t going to believe this.”

“Believe what? Alex, tell me what happened.”

“There was a shadow. With an upside down face. It was coming after me and suddenly there was this thing, this winged monster--”

Strand’s face goes even paler. “Describe it.”

“Wait, what? Are you saying you believe--”

“Describe it. Please.”

Alex doesn’t know if it’s the dim light of the clearing or the pain of his arm, but Strand looks like he’s about to be sick. She thinks she might see real fear in his eyes.

“Big, maybe seven feet tall. With wings. Long-ish silver hair. The skin was grey and there were these, these glowing marks. Dr. Strand? Richard? Are you okay?”

“No.” He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “No, no, no, no, no. This isn’t happening. This _cannot_ be happening.”

She thinks he might be going into shock, but when she reaches out, he moves away, eyes screwed shut. He keeps shaking his head. “What can’t be happening? What’s wrong?”

“It’s my dream. I’m dreaming. Wake up. Wake up. Please, wake up.”

Alex finally manages to put her hands on his shoulders. “Look at me.”

Strand stills. He looks at her, trembling under her touch.

“Listen to me. You’re awake. _I’m_ awake. This is real. Unless we’re both going crazy, which at this point is entirely possible, _you_ were that thing, that--”

“Guardian,” he murmurs. His eyes roll back and he slumps back in a dead faint.

Alex lays him back, careful not to jostle his injured arm. “What in the _hell_ is a Guardian?”

She finds her phone laying a few feet away in a bed of leaves. The screen is cracked. It’s the least of her worries. In the meantime, she calls the paramedics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably need to be an epilogue of some sort, but for now, consider this the last chapter. Thanks for taking this wild ride with me. Hope you enjoyed!


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

Days later, Alex is standing on a chair in Strand’s pantry in his apartment in Chicago. She curses, her fingers just brushing the plastic container of cereal up on the top shelf. She stands on her tiptoes and leans in, stretching as far as her arm will go. She nudges the container with the tips of her fingers, trying to pull it closer by increments. It’s nearly within reach when the chair wobbles and she loses her balance.

Before she can fall, she’s steadied by a hand on her lower back. Even standing on a chair, Alex is only slightly taller than Strand. She looks down at him and smiles, “My guardian angel to the rescue.”

He frowns. “I’m not an angel. There is no such thing.”

They’ve been through this about a hundred times in the last few days. It had taken Strand a long time to come to terms with the events at the Gardens, but even he couldn’t explain the cuts on his hand healing as fast as they did or argue with her about how she’d known what the creature from his dreams looked like.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t tried.

“What are you doing on that chair?” he asks, changing the subject.

“You’re supposed to be resting your arm, so I thought I’d make us some breakfast. But I’m not a very good cook and I didn’t want to risk burning down your apartment. Why do you keep your cereal on the top shelf?”

He helps her down from the chair with the arm not supported by the sling. He doesn’t even have to stretch to reach the cereal. 

“That’s not fair,” she complains as she takes the container from him.

He smiles his wry smile, then goes to another cabinet to pull out two bowls. Alex takes care of fetching the milk and spoons and together they eat their cereal in companionable silence.

Which reminds her. “How are the voices today?”

“Quieter,” he says, watching the last bit of cereal float on top of the leftover milk in his bowl.

After he’d gotten his arm looked at by the paramedics and set hours later in the hospital, Strand had caught a flight back to Chicago. Alex hadn’t given him the chance to hide away from what had happened at the Gardens. She’d given Nic last minute notice, telling him only that she and Strand had had a break in the case, and booked a flight to Chicago. 

After a few days staying in a nearby hotel, Strand had insisted she stay in his guest room. It wasn’t until he’d admitted that the voices--voices he’d said he’d been hearing since the dreams had returned--were quieter when she was around that she’d relented. 

“You look like you’ve slept better than you have in days.”

He huffs a self-depreciating laugh. “Thank you.”

Alex laughs and clears the cereal bowls. To give herself something to do, she washes the dishes by hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just glad I could help. And it gives us one more puzzle piece.”

“You were serious about me being your ‘guardian angel.’”

“Like you said, it’s a theory. I know you don’t believe in fate or destiny--”

Strand rolls his eyes.

“--but this feels right. I feel like we were meant to figure this out--The Black Tapes, your nightmares, everything--together.”

After a lifetime of being a skeptic, Alex knows it’s a lot to take in. She thinks he’s doing relatively well for someone who has spent his entire life denying the paranormal. She can’t image how he must feel having discovered not just the existence of something preternatural, but that he is something extraordinary himself. He sighs. “I’ll admit that it’s worth looking into.”

She knows it’s the best that she’ll get out of him. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thanks for reading!


End file.
